Scoping Review

Physicians, nurses and therapists working in the fields of pediatric palliative care and complex care have an obligation to do their best to improve the quality of life children with severe, progressive and ultimately terminal diseases. They need to have the best evidence possible to do diagnose and treat these diseases. Our clinical experience and our preliminary examination of the research suggest that not enough is known about evaluating and treating challenging symptoms in children with neurological or genetic/metabolic conditions.

We are undertaking a scoping review of the literature to find out how much is known about assessment tools to evaluate symptoms, and treatments to relieve them, in childhood Q3 conditions. A scoping review is a first, broad level review of the literature and sets the stage for future research. The scoping review will help clinicians better understand where knowledge gaps are hindering their efforts and identify knowledge concentrations of useful information.

The purpose of this proposed scoping review is to systematically map literature about the treatment of symptoms in children with Q3 conditions. We will use a phased approach with databases to scan the known literature on symptoms in children with Q3 conditions working with research investigators, clinicians and a health librarian. The team will analyze the publications in detail and report on the scope and quality of the work. We will make good use of the many networks of health care providers and investigators in pediatric palliative and complex care in Canada to bring the results of this scoping review to clinicians and to researchers.